AIE Singapore Day 1 ft. Minister, NanoClaw, OpenAI, Google, Vercel, Cursor & more

By ai.engineer

Categories: AI, Tools

Summary

Singapore's grassroots AI builder community (65 Labs) successfully attracted major frontier AI teams (OpenAI, Google, Vercel, Cursor) to their first in-person conference by building genuine relationships before asking for sponsorship. The conference prioritizes hands-on learning with 20 concurrent workshops and an open API for attendees to build custom schedule tools.

Key Takeaways

1. Build relationships with frontier teams before seeking sponsorships. 65 Labs earned credits and speaker commitments by consistently running community hackathons and build nights, creating organic demand from AI companies.
2. Design conferences around hands-on building, not lectures. 98% of attendees participated in day-one workshops across 5 concurrent rooms plus leadership track—proving practical programming drives engagement.
3. Create community scholarship programs funded by local builders. 20 student scholarships were partially/fully sponsored by community members, not just corporate sponsors, strengthening ecosystem investment.
4. Open-source your conference infrastructure. Building a public API for the program schedule enables attendees to create custom tools instead of forcing a single-solution app—aligns product philosophy with builder values.
5. Grassroots communities can compete with major hubs. A Singapore builder collective attracted an entire plane of speakers from San Francisco, proving geographic location doesn't limit access to frontier AI talent.

Topics

• Community-driven conference strategy
• Grassroots AI builder ecosystems
• Hands-on technical workshops at scale
• Sponsor relationship building tactics
• Open API conference design

Transcript Excerpt

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